She's back.
The exchange between Bush, McCain, and Obama seemed to signal the start of the general election. And Obama's speech in Iowa was supposed to put an exclamation mark on his historic and triumphant presidential candidacy.
But, the day after his Iowa speech, what were the media talking about? Hillary Clinton. Just as Obama stole the media narrative from HRC's West Virginia win with the Edwards endorsement, HRC has "hil-jacked" the media narrative from Obama, at least momentarily.
Everything she's doing and saying now is a not-so-subtle attempt to de-legitimize Obama's candidacy in order to get herself on the ticket. What she is doing is perfectly rational if you see her goal as doing everything she can to make it extremely difficult for Obama not to offer her the VP slot. More below the fold.
Here are the stories dominating the blogs and the airwaves:
- Sexism - Is Hillary losing because of sexism? Know how to bring attention to yourself if you're a forgotten politician? Make some incredibly lame accusations of sexism against a historic presidential nominee. The day after Obama's Iowa speech, we're talking about Geraldine Ferraro and what she said instead of Obama's brilliant speech.
- Popular vote - Is Hillary winning the popular vote? Know how to bring attention to your failed presidential candidacy? Make up a completely nonsensical argument about the popular vote and then watch the MSM and bloggers obsess about how ridiculous an argument it is. I confess, I've been guilty of this myself.
- Florida and Michigan voters have been enslaved! Another way to bring attention to your failed candidacy - compare a petty, intra-party squabble initiated by your own campaign to slavery.
- Are white people racist? As Obama is set to become the first black presidential nominee, a nominee supported by a very broad and diverse base of supporters, the media was obsessing about whether white people could vote for Obama.
I agree with Rachel Maddow that Hillary isn't going away quietly into the night. Where I disagree is about her assessment of Hillary's motives and her post-rationality. Everything she's doing and saying now is a not-so-subtle attempt to de-legitimize Obama's candidacy in order to get herself on the ticket. What she is doing is perfectly rational if you see her goal as doing everything she can to make it extremely difficult for Obama not to offer her the VP slot.
That's the whole point of raising and stoking the sexism, popular vote, disenfranchisement, and white racist voter memes - all those memes help to make Hil's case for VP.
The popular vote argument is to show just how strong the support is among democrats. The white racist voter meme is to hi-light one of Obama's weaknesses, which happens to be a strength of Clinton, as shown by her blow-out wins in West Virginia and Kentucky. That's why she was running up the scores in those states - not because she still thinks she's in the race, but to show how she can help Obama getting the votes of those white racist voters.
Playing the disenfranchisement card is giving her a moral and principled claim for taking the fight to the convention. She's not going to do it, but it's about strengthening her bargaining position for the VP slot. It's about giving herself leverage and a bargaining chip - the threat of an ugly floor fight.
Playing the sexism card is another leveraging tool. She has made her case that she's the most qualified VP candidate, and if Obama picks a man, then that proves the point she's been making - the men in the democratic party have been ganging up together to beat up on the female candidate. If the slot isn't offered to her, she's stoked the sexism meme among her core supporters that you know that there will be an eruption of angry protest as they see the denial as confirmation that sexism has been at play all along.
So, if you see this as a play for the VP slot, everything Hillary done is indeed rational, and we can more clearly see Hillary's end game.